India protests Singapore PM's comments on Indian lawmakers

New Delhi: India on Thursday lodged a strong protest with Singapore over

the comments made by its Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong that almost half of the lawmakers in Lok Sabha have criminal charges pending against them and suggesting a decline in the country's democratic polity from "Nehru's India", people familiar with the development said.

Singapore's high commissioner to India Simon Wong was called to the Ministry of External Affairs and he was conveyed that the comments were "uncalled for" and that India objected to them strongly, they said.

"The remarks by the prime minister of Singapore were uncalled for. We are taking up the matter with the Singaporean side," said one of the people cited above.

In his nearly 40-minute speech, the Singaporean prime minister talked about how a democratic system needs lawmakers with integrity and invoked India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to stress how democracy should work in the city-state.